Peter Sallis as Wallace and Gromit star in Dreamwork’s Wallace and Gromit in “The Curse of The Were-Rabbit”, Copyright 2005.
The Oscar winning animated shorts of Wallace and Gromit have finally spawned their own feature film. Back in 1989, the British short film, “A Grand Day Out,” first featured the duo, winning an Academy Award® for best-animated short. Now their film has grown from around twenty-three minutes to eighty-five.
Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog that he treats like a brother, Gromit, (whose acting should win awards, seeing his character lacks any dialogue) have started their own anti-pest business. Their business helps to rid those pesky rabbits from people’s gardens the safe and humane way. Wallace later meets the lovely Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter), Wallace’s crush, who has an ever-growing rabbit problem. Wallace is summoned and removes many rabbits from her property. Though business has been booming, they are running out of areas to keep the little rabbits in their basement, so being a genius inventor Wallace decides to use of one of his great inventions. Suddenly a large monster is reported to be rampaging through people’s gardens eating their prized vegetables, which they plan to enter in the upcoming annual giant vegetable contest. It’s up to the clay duo to stop the monster from ruining one of the most important events of the year.
I must say I found the film fairly humorous, because some of the laughs are aimed toward children and some of it is aimed towards adults, though both types get a little old after the first forty-five minutes. If you anything about British humor it is a mix of both silly humor, sight gags and crude humor, though it seems this seems to blend perfectly with the duo as well as with the atmosphere of the film. I think the filmmakers really have something here that will help to draw audiences back to the theater, something that is both really cute and has plenty of comedy that will appeal to many kinds of audiences. I also loved how it is something of a parody of old werewolf films: the heroes and those who want to be the heroes, the crazed priest who knows everything about the monster, and the angry and upset townspeople.
“The Curse of The Were-Rabbit” is really a fun and enthusiastic film that will appeal to a lot of people of different ages and views who will find it cute and charming as well. This is definitely the must-see animated film of the year.
Rated G (I think that may actually be the first rated G movie I have ever reviewed, wow.) Though I must caution there is some mildly crude humor in this film. Running Time 85 minutes